SANAA: Yemeni authorities have yet to know the whereabouts of a German oil expert kidnapped by tribesmen in southern Yemen, security sources said yesterday.
The sources said authorities were waiting for tips from tribal chieftains on the hideout of the kidnappers and their hostage, believed to be in a rugged mountainous area in the southern province of Shabwa.
Armed tribesmen kidnapped a German expert and two Yemeni engineers Sunday afternoon as they were heading to their work site at the Arabian Sea port of Balhaf, in the southeastern province of Shabwa, some 570 km from Sanaa.
A local source said the abductors belong to the Laqmoush tribe in Shabwa, and that they were demanding the release of a jailed fellow tribesman accused in the murder of a man from the same tribe in 1989.
The German works as a pipeline expert for Amecspie Hawk, a subcontractor with Yemen LNG Ltd., which runs the project.
Amecspie Hawk is building a 320-km-long pipeline from the oil refinery in Mareb to the LNG exporting port of Balhaf.
Two policemen were injured in a clash with the kidnappers at a checkpoint in Azzan district, when police tried to stop the car that carried the kidnappers and their hostages on Sunday, according to a security source.
The source said one of the policemen was in critical condition and was rushed to a hospital in the southern city of Aden.
Police said a manhunt was under way and that security forces had set up extra checkpoints on roads leading to the kidnappers’ village in the Lamater area of Shabwa.
2 killed in shootout
Two suspected members of a cell belonging to the Al-Qaeda terrorist network were killed and another arrested after a clash with police in Sanaa yesterday, security sources said.
The sources said a fourth suspect managed to flee.
A statement posted on the Defense Ministry’s website said the clash took place after security forces raided an Al-Qaeda safe house in a Sanaa neighborhood.
The statement identified the two dead suspects as Salim Muhammad Mqsaf, a Saudi national, and Yemeni Badr Dawoud Saleh Musharea’a. It said a third suspect, identified as Yemeni Musaed Ahmed Naji Al-Barbari, was arrested in the operation.
